


what are you asking me

by shootsharpest



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen, THB are mentioned but not really there much, and some thoughts about how the end goes down, basically how johann came to join the BOB, minor references to suicide attempts, pretty much canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 21:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10447824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootsharpest/pseuds/shootsharpest
Summary: So, maybe, he tells them the almost-truth about everything he knows, and in return they promise to let him come along.---(Or, how Johann finds himself on a moon base)





	

**Author's Note:**

> this started as a script for an animatic i want to make but i polished it up to share so here it is  
> \---  
> tw for one mention of a (failed) suicide attempt, and canon-compliant character death

It happens when Johann is young, and he’s standing at the edge of a secluded lake, playing a violin as the waters reach towards his feet. A scroll of paper lays there, just out of the water’s grasp. The sun is setting low in the trees, peeking between mountains. A lone deer approaches the waters of the lake and bends to take a drink, not far from him.

The water begins to ripple around where Johann stands. His brow furrows in concentration. There is a memory, always the same one when he plays at the lake. An elven man cloaked in shadow escapes into the night, a human woman coughs in a bed, her son holds her hand and trembles. She puts a hand to his cheek and he closes his eyes, tearing up.

He feels tears too real to be a memory brimming in his eyes, but he continues to play. It is nearly dark now; the rippling water has reached his feet and soaks his boots. His concentration doesn’t break as he continues his concert. The water clutches at the scroll of music, finally claiming it. It floats gently out to the water before a long, dark tentacle curls around it and drags it below. 

The smooth, inky waves of the lake before Johann are softly illuminated by a thousand twinkling lights, like an entire galaxy just beneath the surface. It is dark now, and the few fireflies emerging from the woods around him are hardly a match for the display within the lake.

-

There’s a movement in the trees, one night. Johann stops playing and turns on a heel. The water recedes somewhat, along with do the lights spreading on the lake as the outstretched tentacles withdraw themselves, too. 

Four figures emerge: a woman with dark skin and silvery hair, carrying an oak staff; a young man with wild curls, with a wrench hanging off one hip and a flask off the other; and a duo (Johann supposes they might be related--the resemblance is uncanny) hanging back behind the others, laden down with scientific equipment emitting soft noises and lights.

Johann glances back at the lights on the lake, and walks towards them.

-

He tells them everything he knows about it. It eats his music or anything written down and makes everyone else forget--except for him, ever since he drank some of the lake water (ever since he tried to  _ drown _ in the lake a few years ago, is what actually happened, but he doesn’t feel the need to tell them this). 

So, maybe, he tells them the  _ almost _ -truth about everything he knows, and in return they promise to let him come along.

Johann plays and coaxes the giant jellyfish to the edge of the lake. It is tentative, but comes along. A giant glass container is ballooned down, the operation spearheaded by that young curly-haired man named Avi.

Johann clutches his violin as he ascends in a glass cannonball to the moon base, behind the jellyfish’s new tank. Avi claps a hand on his shoulder, breaking him out of his stupor, and he glances one last time at Faerun, at the town he’s leaving behind. He wonders if he will have to feed his own name, if it would make any difference at all since no one in town likely would remember him either way. He’s not sure if this is a comforting thought.

The tank is installed onto the base, and a dome is constructed over it. The woman with the oak staff, Lucretia, asks if it has a name. He’s never given it one before, but Voidfish slips easily off his tongue as if it was always there. It sticks. 

-

Johann plays for the Voidfish in its new tank. The room around the tank itself isn’t as interesting to look at, though. There’s a desk with stacks of half-polished compositions and paperwork on it, some notes from Lucretia concerning events to be compiled and erased. Several instruments strewn haphazardly around. A test tube stand borrowed from Maureen and Lucas full of clean, empty vials next to a spigot. The lever and chute where he enters information to be erased.

It’s probably late one night-- the candles he keeps around have burned down to the wick, but there’s never any outside light in the room to help him gauge the time. Johann tears a scrap of paper from the pile of abandoned music bars and scribbles.

_ Eolfin [surname unknown] of Dorisea, and wife Maria (deceased) _

His hands tremble as he lifts it to the chute. He watches with cautious eyes as the scrap floats up into the water and into the Voidfish’s tentacles. There aren’t many lights this time. 

Sleep is a little easier that night.

\- 

Time moves by. Somehow there’s weather on the moon base. It was summer when Johann arrived, but the air soon turns chilly and the sparse trees on the quad lose their leaves. Johann hardly notices; he barely ever leaves the dome, and when he does, he doesn’t often take much time to look around. 

Before he knows it, though, summer comes again. One day as he’s walking from his room to the Voidfish’s chambers, he sees them. A man, an elf, and a dwarf, standing on unsteady legs in the elevator. He knows a new recruit when he sees one, but these three are different. They have an air about them, as if even though they’ve just arrived they already  _ own _ the place. Johann pushes these thoughts back and gives them the “welcome” spiel. As they begin their descent to the chambers, he lifts his violin to his chin and plays. The three recruits weep. 

(Not that he expected any different, because everyone does.)

Seeing the Voidfish for the first time is underwhelming, because you can’t really  _ see _ it, only the murky tank it lives in. He leads them down the corridor, lights clicking on under the tank, and hears the dwarf mutter something about this trip down being a waste of time. Johann ignores his remarks and fills three vials with practiced ease, handing them over.

The three drink. The three remember. Johann holds his breath. His hands twitch as he recalls his unapproved entry fed to the Voidfish nearly a year ago. But of course no one ever remembers anything about his parents--why would anyone when even he could hardly remember either of their faces? 

Johann watches the three of them leave, and puts a hand to the glass. The Voidfish, as always, is indifferent.

-

He hears a lot of talk around the Bureau about those three reclaimers, but it seems like he’s always watching from afar, the same as with most affairs in the Bureau. They don’t really need his help. After inoculation, it seems no one really does, actually. 

At Candlenights, he gets another memo from Lucretia to void out Lucas Miller and Noelle Redcheek (Boyland’s Rites won’t come until much, much later). He isn’t sure if it’s harder to feed in a name he knows so well or one he’s only just heard now. 

But he’s been doing this for so long now, it’s never any harder.

-

It's springtime when he hears tell of some town in a canyon somewhere, but no names arrive for erasing. It’s almost summer again, and he’s been here for two years. Days bleed together.

-

His stone of farspeech crackles one day, not long after the reclaimers have left for another mission. It’s Avi, sounding considerably shaken. Johann can hear the clink of the flask in his hand against something else--his bracer, maybe--and the wavering of Avi’s voice as he tells him it’s time to pull another file. Johann is already thinking through the music he’ll play at whoever’s Rites of Remembrance when he hears it, and everything crashes to a halt.

A shriek, then nothing. The stone has fizzled to silence.

His fingers twitch and he grabs for the closest instrument--a small harp, the very same one he used when he first played along with the Voidfish. 

(And even now it still won’t play with him again, or put its tentacle to his hand on the glass, but he tries not to be too bitter about how easily Magnus was able to connect with this creature he’s devoted his life and his whole  _ career  _ to.)

He plucks softly and the Voidfish listens, swimming restlessly in its tank. The music comes out as tense as he feels.

Something solid and smooth grabs him from behind--above?--and after a brief struggle, he’s unconscious. 

When he shakes himself awake, it’s to the noise of the Voidfish screaming. He’s never heard it make noises quite like this before, and he supposes he never will again because next thing he knows, there’s a hacking line torn across his back and he collapses again.

He comes to yet again, but this time it’s less like waking up and more like opening his eyes underwater. He knows, somehow, he’s experiencing the singular sensation of having his soul pulled out of his body. Against all odds, Magnus is there, floating into some unknown light, and Johann knows he cannot follow. He wills himself to speak one last time before Magnus disappears. 

And, for once, everything is silent.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on my [tumblr](https://tagnus.tumblr.com/) if you wanna cry about johann with me


End file.
